Intonation of angry and happy Singapore English acted speech

Abstract

Intonation conveys multiple levels of linguistic meaning and emotional cues. While there have been studies characterising the prosody of emotional speech, it is not known whether these findings, which are primarily observed from Western participants, are applicable for Singapore English (SgE) speakers. One needs to understand the ways in which intonation acts as a medium for emotion communication while considering Singaporeans’ multicultural and multilingual background. This work presents a first look at understanding the intonation produced by Singaporean actors in their portrayals of anger and happiness. It also aims to consider how SgE speakers of different ethnicities may perceive different emotions from these intonations. Results so far show similarity among SgE speakers in emotion perception and echo previous findings of the prosody of anger and happiness. However, different pitch contours can also be observed, suggesting an interaction of SgE intonation and emotional prosody.